Forensic Investigation
- What is forensic investigation?
Similar to engineering failure analysis, forensic engineering Investigation investigation is the application of scientific methodology, knowledge and experience to investigate an engineering failure, incident or accident.
Apart from identifying the mechanism(s) and root cause(s) of a failure, the investigated case could be related to a litigation matter with multiple parties involved, such as the original equipment manufacturer, distributor, end-user, contractor, insurance companies and even government agencies. The investigator is often engaged as an expert witness to testify his findings or comment on other experts’ findings in a court trial. - Who are we?
We are a neutral, professional, and experienced party to provide engineering failure analysis service.
We are able to and have successfully conducted projects on behalf of our clients from different industries (e.g., aviation, construction, electronics, power generation, oil & gas, manufacturing, etc.) involving complex failure modes (e.g., distortion, cracking, corrosion, wear, fatigue, creep, fire, explosion, flashover, arcing, etc.), diverse materials (e.g., metal, polymer, ceramic, composites, etc.) and various root causes (e.g., design issue, manufacturing defect, installation problem, operation issue, environmental attack, etc.).
- How do we carry out forensic investigation?
The objective of a forensic investigation is to determine the cause of a failure. It is important to establish the chain of causation that led to the failure and figure out the sequence of the accidents. Scientific principles and methodologies are the basis to carry out engineering forensic investigation. We use an evidence-based approach coupled with numerical simulation as necessary.
The scope of a typical investigation usually covers:- Background information review and analysis of client’s available data.
- Site visit, inspection and systematic sampling.
- Detailed planned laboratory analysis of selected samples.
- Data analysis, interpretation and logical inference.
- Report preparation and presentation of our investigation to the client.
- Provide improvement recommendations and follow up with the improvement validation.
- Technical support in disputes arising from our report.
- Value added for our clients:
- As a valuable resource, we provide unique expertise to help our client to understand the failure, incident or accident clearly in a timely manner.
- Our reports provide clear direction to determine the liability of involved parties.
- We advise the client of countermeasures of preventing similar failure, incident or accident or minimizing failure rate.
- Our report can be used as expert evidence for litigation matters and/or insurance claims (if applicable).
